2017 Motus MST

Motus Motorcycles were forced to shut their doors in September of 2018. Not an uncommon end to many smaller motorcycle companies, but when you take a closer look at what Lee Conn and Brian Case created, to me it’s one of the more disappointing. Their drive was to create an American made, sport touring motorcycle that would rival any on the road. From most accounts, they succeeded. The party piece was what can only be described as a big American V8 engine, cut in half and engineered to power a bike. The result was breathtaking to behold, only second reportedly to the experience of riding it. Lance Oliver gave a detailed account of the demise of Motus on RevZilla’s Common Tread in September of 2018.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can go back to the start of the story and the bike itself. Motus was founded and based out of Birmingham, Alabama in 2008. It’s a story of masterful engineering to develop a truly unique and uniquely American Sport Touring motorcycle. The MST was the first bike to be powered by the push rod V4. It’s essentially the way car engines valves are actuated, a cam shaft pushing rods to open the valves. The 1,650cc monster, like many American bikes, is all about low end power and torque. There is a lot to say about the engine design alone, but the bike built around it is equally impressive. Lemmy (also of Common Tread) gave a great account of riding the Motus in April of 2018. The crew over at Revzilla was not alone in their love of the Motus. By all accounts this was an incredible bike, and with that came a premium price tag, which may have contributed to the struggles the company ended up having.

This 2017 Motus MST has done 9,900 miles which is fairly low when you consider the miles this bike is built to do. The seller has detailed all of the attributes of this bike in their very thorough posting. These include both seat and grip warmers, dual power outlets, 3M paint protection film, 5 different windshields, and a 30-liter top case just to name a few. One of my favorite features of the bike is under the seat. When you take it off and flip it over, there are the signatures of the employees that worked on your motorcycle, and that’s pretty special. This bike is a piece of American Motorcycling history, even if a short piece.

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